I stared at her—a tall, voluptuously developed woman of twenty-six. Her eyes were large, blue-gray, and expressive. Her brows were dark and well defined, her mouth like a buttonhole. Her nose, though not large, curved over it, and reminded me of the beak of a parrot. Nature, as though begrudging the generous amount of material used in making one woman, had not only skimped her chin but taken a snip out of the middle of it.
“Don’t you love it?” she panted, her face shining with enjoyment. “Don’t you love it?”
“I think it is horrible that people have to live in such holes.”
“W-e-e-ll, if you will look at it from a utilitarian point of view,” my guide drawled patronizingly. Then she added with gusto: “From the point of the artist it is colossal. Swarms of ’em come here—for types, you know. The starving children of Belgium and famine sufferers—colossal studies!”
“Do you think they actually suffer for food?”
“My dear!” Hildegarde stopped on the corner and catching me by the shoulder brought me to a sudden stand-still. “I talked to a little girl who lived in that fifth house. The most desperate-looking child I ever saw. She told me she never had anything for breakfast before going to school except the dregs from a can of beer and a left-over potato, or a crust of bread. Sometimes she didn’t get the beer—that depended on how drunk her parents were when they fell asleep. Colossal! Think of the literary atmosphere!”
“You come here for atmosphere?” I inquired, thinking that the effrontery needed to commercialize the misfortunes of that child was what was colossal.
“Not often,” she replied, puckering her lips and drawing her brows together. “To tell the truth these people are too—too prosperous for me, for my purpose.” Here squinting her eyes she thrust her face nearer mine. “To let you into a secret—I’m specializing on the underworld, crooks and their sort. My burglar took me to a joint on the East Side kept by one of the most famous crooks in New York,—in the whole world. All his customers are crooks. Colossal!”
Had I been a profane woman I would have called her a damned fool.
“It may not be safe for you—not exactly,” Hildegarde told me, panting eagerly. “But if you’ve got the pep I’m willing to take you. A policeman wouldn’t dare go there alone. With me, having been introduced by my burglar, it’s different. Would you like to go to-night?”